Zimbabwe declares national health emergency

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and the collapse of its health-care system, and state media reported Thursday the government is seeking more international help to pay for food and drugs to combat the crisis.

The failure of the southern African nation’s health-care system is one of the most devastating effects of the country’s overall economic collapse.

Facing the highest inflation in the world, Zimbabweans are struggling just to eat and find clean drinking water. The United Nations says the number of suspected cholera cases in Zimbabwe since August has climbed above 12,600, with 570 deaths, because of a lack of water treatment and broken sewage pipes.

Still, residents are getting little help from the government, which has been paralyzed since disputed March elections as President Robert Mugabe and the opposition wrangle over a power-sharing deal.

“Our central hospitals are literally not functioning,” Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa said Wednesday at a meeting of government and international aid officials, according to The state-run Herald newspaper.

International aid agencies and donors must step up their response, Matthew Cochrane, regional spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told The Associated Press on Thursday.